The Castle Doctrine Forums

zed

Member

Registered: 2013-04-16

Posts: 171

Re: Well, now the cashflow problem is on coke...

This loophole has been around since v5 though, right?

Starting with a 'Starter' set of tools and a 'Materials' voucher seems like the cleanest fix.

Yes, it's an old problem. Infinite backpacks make it a bit more annoying,
though - you now really don't want your house value to be pumped up too far,
because even if the pumper can't take it back someone else will, and will
wreck your house in the process.

Having the starter money be usable only for house-building seems a decent fix,
agreed, and starting with a few sundry tools in your vault is probably ok.

As far as the UI goes: just having a message at the top when you're first
building ("Design your house - leftover money will be wasted" or similar) and
disabling tool buying should be enough.

I think this is probably neater than the respawn limits we discussed earlier.

bey bey

Member

Registered: 2013-04-20

Posts: 386

Re: Well, now the cashflow problem is on coke...

Seconded.

And just since I need to share it - just built a house, scraping, scavenging etc. until I had a value of about 25000 built in, was just doing some final tweaks and stepped on the wrong button. I got eaten in front of the doorstep. One more step. 25000. Argh. Back to begging it is...

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In fact you can be batman.
(if he robbed houses and murdered families.) - Dalleck

ukuko

Member

Registered: 2013-04-06

Posts: 334

Re: Well, now the cashflow problem is on coke...

It doesn't logically make sense that I can earn something that is robbed while i'm earning it though?

Say you have $1000 in your house. Cash/items. Robber comes in, robs the lot. If they have anything in their backpack, they leave it. Your house now has the value of whatever they left in it, so it continues to earn a wage based on Jason's new rules.

largestherb

Member

From: england

Registered: 2013-05-27

Posts: 381

Re: Well, now the cashflow problem is on coke...

You've been away for XX hours and earned $1960. [Return to House]

Balance: $420

how does that work? Oo

You earned a bunch and got robbed. The robber dropped something on their way out so your house still had money in it and continued earning.

It doesn't logically make sense that I can earn something that is robbed while i'm earning it though?

imagine you keep a little 1991 pager in your vault, the pager has the number of your accountant. the robber is clearly sending your accountant a request to send all of your bank balance to the robbers account.

i forget where i asked it, but jason gave a fair enough reason (at the time) as to why this happens. with new wages rules, hmm..

i definitely like the idea of starting cash being materials only. $2000 is a bit of a shoelace budget

nathan

Member

From: A ditch somewhere

Registered: 2013-06-15

Posts: 61

Re: Well, now the cashflow problem is on coke...

i definitely like the idea of starting cash being materials only. $2000 is a bit of a shoelace budget

I don't know why people don't like starting with $2000. A lot of the cheaper houses can be solved easily with no tools, and you can make a good (albeit less secure) house for $2000. The way I do it is making the vault in a corridor, and having a bunch of challenges (mainly chance, mazes, and chihuahuas in corridors) that if solved right, open their own individual doors to the vault. I generally only start with one or two and keep adding on.

---

"I just robbed Mr. Rogers." -Ludicrosity "The wood is my desk, and I'm knocking it with my head." -Blip
"I'd rather pack 25 meats than 1 crowbar if you know what I mean..." -Jabloko
"This is one of the most disturbed things I have seen in quite a while. I blame global warming." -bey bey
"that seems like more resources than I'm willing to put into having my kids killed." -cbenny

ukuko

Member

Registered: 2013-04-06

Posts: 334

Re: Well, now the cashflow problem is on coke...

Now that the Moneyball® has been sucked dry, the starting $2000 is a bit more useful.

jasonrohrer

Administrator

Registered: 2013-04-01

Posts: 1,235

Re: Well, now the cashflow problem is on coke...

Good idea here about just standing on the mat not forcing you to drop your tools.

Otherwise, you're forced to scout with nothing, and returning to your house to load out can be a pain.

Though I just thought of something:  someone would just put their entire vault in their backpack while going out on initial, doormat scouting, right?  Bringing the value of their house down, etc., and protecting the stuff from being robbed.

I think that's the reason I had all tools dropped post-robbery, even if you don't step off the mat:  to force you to keep stuff in your vault most of the time, and only put stuff in your pack when you had a concrete plan to use it.

Pumping up a house with tools by dying over and over has always been there (since v1, in fact).

However, it's kindof a self-correcting problem, because the pumped-up house rises to the top of the list, becoming a target that everyone starts looking at.  So, you do the work pumping it up, and then someone else snatches it.

I mean, if you're the only one who knows how to solve it?  I guess that could be possible.

Regarding starting money vs. home building vs. tools, I DO like the fact that starting robbers have "nothing to lose" and might blow it all on tools, not protect their family, and test their luck.  That has always been part of this game, and it creates a steady stream of attempts on every house (the seething masses, beating down your door).  Of course, if they ever do score, they might regret coming home to a dead wife to live their rich life alone.

Anyway, there may still be a problem here ($2000 in tools too strong), but I think that can be fixed just by tweaking the price balance between tools and house tiles.  I'll start another thread about this in a bit.

dalleck

Member

Registered: 2013-04-13

Posts: 250

Re: Well, now the cashflow problem is on coke...

Pumping up a house with tools by dying over and over has always been there (since v1, in fact).

But back then you had a limited tool-set.

Regarding starting money vs. home building vs. tools, I DO like the fact that starting robbers have "nothing to lose" and might blow it all on tools, not protect their family, and test their luck.  That has always been part of this game, and it creates a steady stream of attempts on every house (the seething masses, beating down your door).  Of course, if they ever do score, they might regret coming home to a dead wife to live their rich life alone.

Anyway, there may still be a problem here ($2000 in tools too strong), but I think that can be fixed just by tweaking the price balance between tools and house tiles.  I'll start another thread about this in a bit.

I am all for robbers 'trying their luck' as you say, but I don't know if it works in this build.  Robbers used to 'try their luck' by going in with a scant set of tools.  Now they enter like bloody rambo!

Increasing the cost of tools will only make it take a little longer for players to abuse, a little longer to cheat the system to earn as much starting cash as they need.

Then they 'win' the game by not actually playing it at all.

Last edited by dalleck (2013-06-17 06:06:41)

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The rich aren't safe. Nobody is safe. -jere                   ...but the smell wafts out from the pit, obviously. - Jason Rohrer

And the more dickish they are, the more I feel like beating a house to destruction after finally figuring it out. -bey bey

jasonrohrer

Administrator

Registered: 2013-04-01

Posts: 1,235

Re: Well, now the cashflow problem is on coke...

Pumping up a house with tools by dying over and over has always been there (since v1, in fact).

But back then you had a limited tool-set.

The limit was the same as it is now, regarding pumping up a house:  $2000.  You could buy $2000 worth of guns before (4 guns) and dump those in a house by dying. 

Now you can buy $2000 worth of guns (2), or saws (20), or any tool.  The only thing that has changed is the variety of tools that you can dump in a house for $2000, not the ability to dump $2000 in a house before dying.

And, before, you could dump $2000 in a house over and over, and then rob that house, sell those tools, and buy 100 saws or whatever.  It was slightly less efficient before (because you'd have to resell guns, losing money, to get lots of saws), but the principle was the same.

(Granted, with the v8 budget of $6000, you didn't have room for $6000 worth of anything in your pack.)

Increasing the cost of tools will only make it take a little longer for players to abuse, a little longer to cheat the system to earn as much starting cash as they need.

You mean by dying repeatedly to dump tools in one house, maybe a totally broken one, and then robbing it?  I wonder how easy this is to actually pull off on a server with other active players....  you know, because the house is going to climb to the top of the list and be hit by someone else.  You're still "pressing your luck".... how high are you going to push the house up before hitting it?

Granted, this is totally possible right now (if you're the only one robbing at the moment).  I've pushed a house up to $9100 this way, all the way to the top of the list, and there it sits. 

It's okay to say, "Well, once we have more people, this won't be a problem," but I do want the game to scale all the way up and all the way down.

Limiting robbers to a starting tool set won't help (they'll just die over and over, dumping that starting tool set).  And I *DO* want tools building up from failed robberies in the hard houses.  If a house is actually still a challenge, even pure death-dumping isn't such a problem.

The more concerning problem is being able to pump up a "dead house" and then hit it for a big payoff (what I just did, and still, there it sits at the top of the list, many minutes later).

Maybe once a house has been tagged as "broken" (after it has been robbed twice in a row and is no longer earning money), it should stop accumulating tools that are dropped there?

Actually, there's no good reason for those houses to even be visible anymore at the bottom of the list.... they've got $0 in them, wife is dead, not earning money.... why show them at all?

Then the only choices for "tool dumping" would become houses that are still hard to rob.  Even the ones *near* the bottom of the list now are pretty scary looking.

Also, this would protect houses from repeated vandalism.

ukuko

Member

Registered: 2013-04-06

Posts: 334

Re: Well, now the cashflow problem is on coke...

Actually, there's no good reason for those houses to even be visible anymore at the bottom of the list.... they've got $0 in them, wife is dead, not earning money.... why show them at all?

This would also prevent people from 'resurrecting' dead houses (by dumping a brick in there, for example) for the sole purpose of dumping tools or earning wages to rob later.